The Change (2023) s01e03 Episode Script

1
FOLK MUSIC ECHOES
GUITAR PLAYS SOFTLY
SIGHS GENTLY
SHE GASPS
Oh!
Agh!
PHONE PINGS
Oh, wow!
FOLK MUSIC PLAYS QUIETLY
Last night on that shitty mattress.
Oh
Oh
WHISPERS: Why is everything orange?
Oh, shit, it's a fire.
It's a fire!
FIRE!
This Saharan dust's a pain, innit?
Wh-where did you?
S-Saharan dust?
What's that?
Dust - from the Sahara.
Gets blown over. Be gone soon.
Oh, right.
Oh, I'm glad you're here, actually.
Um
Things haven't really worked out
as I'd planned,
and so I'm thinking of moving on today.
I was wondering if I could maybe
get my rent back.
No, you fucking can't! Oh, Jesus!
It's only been a couple of days.
It's £400!
And it's already been allocated.
Ags is saving up for a drone camera.
Help her find her, ley lines.
Moving on to where, any road?
Oh, I-I don't know
The Sargasso Sea?
To meet your destiny?
Not all eels go the fastest way,
you know.
Some take a more circuitous route.
But they all end up back
where they began.
Just like us.
Mm! Let's get them tables wiped.
Oh, by the way,
third cousin Bernadette called.
She's on her way down to the
town hall meeting, and she says
if she's not on the front row,
someone's going to lose their dick.
Oh, come on.
Kids!
KIDS!
HE SIGHS
WHISPERS: Fuck's sake.
Bit tight, but might just be
my best town hall meeting outfit ever.
Morning. Morning.
SHE CLEARS THROA
"Singing with nightingales."
What a load of bloody rubbish.
Argh! Ugh!
HE EXCLAIMS
Dirty, lazy bastards!
Ugh!
HE RETCHES
OTHERS RETCH
Ugh!
Where is he?
Now my shoe stinks!
Dirty bloody
You touch it, you buy it,
young lady.
Oh!
Oh, hello again! I'm sorry,
I didn't know there was anyone
in here.
HE CHUCKLES
Now, we both know that's not true,
don't we? Eh?
Oh, I don't blame you, Linda.
If I couldn't see this every day
I'd want a sneaky peek, too.
Honestly, I really wasn't trying
to see without Well?
It might be a bit snug round
Snug round the ass? Yeah, yeah.
What's all this, then?
Date? Interview?
Court case?
Less of the cheek, young lady!
These are for the town meeting. Mm!
I gets new trousers every year
for the town meeting.
It's a tradition.
HE SHOUTS: Started years ago
when they split during a meeting.
Now they have a sweepstake.
Forget that old Eel Festival,
Linda, Tony's town hall trousers
are the highlight
of the calendar year.
They even got their own
Twitter account.
"Tony's trousers"
will be trending tonight.
It's only a curtain, Tony -
there's no need to shout.
HE SHOUTS: So don't you tell no-one
what you've seen here.
OK, I won't tell anyone
about your trousers.
And I won't be going to the meeting
anyway - it's nothing to do with me.
Well, it's your loss.
Well, I'm seeing your trousers now
anyway, so
"Few tasks are more similar
to the torment of Sisyphus,
"than those of a housewife."
HER VOICE FADES
"Day after day, I must wash dishes,
dust furniture
"and mend clothes that were dirty,
dusty"
Linda-r!
Pick them up for us, will you, love?
Me back's gone.
That dress - far too young for YOU.
Bonne chance!
BELL JANGLES
Bloody joke.
HE'S annoying, isn't he?
I wouldn't kick him out of bed.
You men Ugh!
You menopausal women
and your bloody fans!
Joy, how do you turn this bloody fan
off?
Joy?
Joy, can you help me turn this fan
off, please?
Oh, Joy, can you turn it off?
Wait, it's just Yeah.
This way, is it? Yeah, just
I just
I think I can do it now, Joy,
thank you.
Thank you, Joy.
You're welcome.
Whew!
CLEARS THROA
Morning, Joy.
Morning! Sh! Sh! Sh-zzh!
Going live in three, two
Coming to you raw, unfiltered
and white, like milk, it's the Verderer.
Good morning. Good morning.
Good morning!
Forget International Women's Day,
Pride Day
and Martin Luther King Day
because today is the day
to beat all other days!
It's town hall meeting day!
I hope you've placed your bets
on Tony's trousers.
MY money is on a pair of jeggings!
And I'll tell you why. Thanks.
So I've been betting 20 years
I found my tree yesterday.
That was quick. I know!
I thought I'd take a few weeks
at least. Yeah.
began to emerge
after his third pair.
So, anyway, what I was looking for
wasn't there.
Oh, no. So I guess it's time
to move on.
Oh Nothing keeping me here.
Nothing here?
Everything is here.
Tony's trouser sweepstake
the Eel Festival,
cat speed dating.
Bavarian lederhosen Tempting.
But, nah,
I like to keep myself busy.
So I'm expecting a good turnout
this year, fellers.
We need to nip this eel queen
nonsense in the bud.
I mean, if they can pick a woman
for this year's Eel Festival,
God knows what they'll pick
for next.
It'll be a vegan leprechaun
or a pansexual ostrich
or a dyslexic dragon, won't it?
Peter Watkins will be turning
in his grave if he could see
his daughters disrespecting
centuries-old tradition
and our men in such a vulgar manner.
I've never heard of the like!
How can it be that?
It CAN'T be.
HE GASPS
It's a nightingale.
A nightingale.
Well, I never!
Are you here to give me a message,
little bird?
OVER LOUDSPEAKER
I can see you, little bird.
HE WHISTLES
HE SNIFFLES
Thank you.
DOG BARKS
Dirty, lazy bastard.
Oh, sorry about that. A nightingale!
Um, anyway, now, I want to talk
about something
that's causing a lot of division
in the town.
And, no, I'm not talking about
who gets
to keep Keith's cat cappuccino.
God rest Keith's soul.
What a terrible tragedy.
But let that be a lesson to us all.
Autoerotic asphyxiation is never
a good idea,
especially if you live alone.
No cat should have to witness that.
Or have to eat the orange
to stay alive.
No, today, I want to talk about
the new redevelopment of the town.
The investment and prosperity
it'll bring the area is undeniable,
but I will not sit by and watch
our wildlife and forest
be destroyed.
Back after this.
So, are they building a road
THROUGH the forest? Uh-huh.
I assume they'd been going
around it.
No, right through the middle.
PHONE PINGS
Dick pic?
Could say that, yeah.
Pig Man!
Hello?
I've brought you a goodbye present.
Oh
GENERAL CHATTER
VELCRO RIPS
TONY CHUCKLES
You washed your hair, have you, Jan?
That looks clean enough for me to
eat my dinner off of.
Well, I try not to wash it
too often, Tony,
to let the natural oils come out.
You need all the lubrication
you can get at your age.
RIPPLES OF LAUGHTER
Quiet, please.
Item one - The Eel Festival.
Eh?!
EXCLAIMING AND MURMURING
Tony's trousers is ALWAYS item one
on the agenda.
No, he's right. It's not just
the Eel sisters mixing things up
this year,
Tony. And I won't be intimidated
by third cousin Bernadette, neither.
It's my meeting, my rules.
ALL: Ooooh!
Tony's trousers reveal
will be at the end.
Shame.
GRUMBLING
Now, as you all know, the Eel
sisters are planning some
controversial changes this year.
Since the passing of their faither.
Faither Watkins.
No-one gives a shit
about the men in this town.
First they close the mines,
then Digger Land.
And now they're taking our Eel king.
Faither were a stickler
for tradition.
He'd never allow a woman
to take over the role.
SHOUTS OF AGREEMEN
And I'm sure once the paperwork is
through on his succession plan,
we will see that I was his intended.
Yeah!
Well, we all know how long
probate can take.
Until then, WE decide who it is.
Whether they be bore within the
said 100 of Eel Lake,
or whether they have done deeds
worthy to this community.
It's about finding the right person.
SHOUTS OF AGREEMEN
Eels don't have a gender
until they go back to the Sargasso
Sea and reproduce.
Exactly. So there were no need
for it to always be a man.
Yeah, it could be a woman.
Or a man. Or neither.
Yeah. Or both.
Yeah! Should be me!
Next item - the coalface,
Morris Men controversy.
Tony, you want to kick us off here?
Yeah, well, me and the boys
blacking up -
it's not about black PEOPLE, is it?
It's about mining for coal.
Oh, it's not actually about coal,
Tony, the blacking up is a disguise.
Eh?
You know, used to black up
as a disguise.
Eh?!
Well, isn't it? Well, either or,
it's about colour.
You know? I mean,
these bloody snowflakes -
they'll be banning bloody
night-time next. Yeah. Yeah!
And liquorice.
Yeah! Then, uh
tyres.
Tyres.
They MIGHT ban tyres.
We mined for an iron ore here
before coal anyway, Tony.
Yeah, so you could paint
your faces red.
Or orange.
But why do things have to change?
Yes! Yeah!
We must hold on to our British traditions.
Yeah. Yeah! Yeah!
We HAVE kept hold of
our traditions - the good ones.
But the festival HAS to change and
evolve to survive.
MURMURS OF AGREEMEN
The man with the longest willy used
to put it through people's
letterboxes so children could feed
the eel.
Better now we don't do THAT, innit?
It's a reflection of modern-day
Britain.
It is about holding on to the core values
of being British. Yeah!
Being proud to be British. Yeah!
I AM proud to be British,
just like I'm sure Cheddar Man was.
Oh, leave the Cheddar Man
out of this, will you, Joy?
We don't mean YOU.
You're integrated, you know?
It's all the others.
Who's the Cheddar Man?
Isn't he in Wallace And Gromit?
There wasn't a man made of cheddar
in Wallace and Gromit.
It was a sheep.
I don't remember a cheese sheep.
No, it was the moon, Judith.
The moon was made of Wensleydale.
How dare you?!
Honestly, can't you women get
some HRT or something?
No, we can't!
It's all run out!
There, there, third cousin Bernadette.
The Cheddar Man was a fossilised man
that they found in a cave
in Cheddar.
Reckon he was the first Briton.
Used DNA to reconstruct his face,
and he had black skin and blue eyes.
SHOCKED MURMURING
What?!
Our festivals are for everyone.
They're a celebration
of what it means to be alive,
to be human. And that's ALL of us.
So if we start excluding people
and making them feel bad,
then they're for none of us.
CAMERA CLICKS
ANGRY SHOUTING Please
Please! Please!
Look, no-one, no-one will be heard
if we're all shouting!
You've all got the printouts
of the Phase One plans
of the development.
Yes, Verderer?
What I'm saying is it won't just be
the beavers, habitats
destroyed if these proposed
redevelopments go ahead.
Feck the beavers!
I want Starbucks! Yes! Or a
Costa's.
Or Nero's.
You women and your bloody coffee!
How dare you?!
We understand your concerns, Verderer.
No, you don't. It's all about
the money with you people.
You think you can plant a few new
trees and that'll be it.
Well
Well, we
Ugh, we did.
We did make
best endeavours to find alternative routeing.
And to minimise the
No, you didn't!
It's a lie!
PROTESTING
Destroy ancient woodland
and thou will be cursed.
You finished those floors yet, Alan?
I'm just going to finish up here,
Jan, and I'll pop off home.
The Eel cafe's
been in the same spot since 1850.
It survived wars and plagues
and Veganuary.
Its foundations are rooted
in the trees which surround it.
It CAN'T just be picked up
and moved.
It won't survive.
SHOUTS OF AGREEMEN
Yeah, it's not just things above
ground that need to be preserved.
It's what's underneath, too.
The mines have their own story
to tell.
Yes, yes. Look, I've made a note
of everyone's concerns,
and I will be feeding those back.
But we need to move on
to the next item on the, um
Oh, you know, the the
List? No, not list.
There's a better word than list.
Running order?
No. Itinerary?
Definitely not.
Ugh
Oh, you know, the the
Well, you know what I meant. The
Agenda.
Agenda! Thank you, Joy!
Agenda. Next item.
Tony's trousers sweepstake.
CHEERING
Go on, Tony!
ALL: Ooh-ooh-oooooh!
WHOOPING
CHEERING, GROANING
YELLS: It's jeggings! It's jeggings!
Jeggings!
It's jeggings!
I knew it would be jeggings!
DRUMBEATS
SHE SQUEALS
And that concludes
this year's business.
Well, we haven't finished
about the redevelopments yet.
They can't proceed without tree
felling orders or eviction notices, so
Is this an eviction notice?
Who's that? Where'd SHE come from?
I found it on Pig Man's door.
What?
MURMURING
Pig Man says the forest paths are
being closed off at Mallards Pike.
Mallards Pike?
What's going on, Janet?
I'm not aware of any of this.
Mallards Pike wasn't
part of the proposed route.
Let me just, um Have a look!
Check this.
I told you, I don't know anything
about this.
The plans must have changed.
What?
Why are they closing off
Mallards Pike?
And what's the point of this meeting
if you're ploughing ahead anyway?
Well, to get you all in one place,
I think,
so that they can get on with it.
MURMURING
Seems to me
like this meeting has been called
under false pretences. Yeah! Yeah!
Keep us all away. Yeah! Yeah!
Including you, Janet.
I think I just said that.
Yes, she just said that.
She just said that.
No, II'm sorry.
I didn't know.
There are ancient oaks in the path
of that planned route, Janet.
Starlings - it's their home!
I didn't know.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
That's enough!
Sorry, Janet, it's not your fault.
I'm so sorry.
Nice one, Linda.
Oh, Sally, my dearest
You, I'd be kissing
Oh, Sally, my dear
It's you I'd be kissing
She smiled and replied
"You don't know what you're missing"
Oh, Sally, my dear
I wish I could wed you
Oh, Sally, my dear
I wish I could bed you
She smiled and replied
"Then you'd say I misled you"
If all you young men were hares
on the mountain
How many young girls
would take guns and go hunting?
If the young man could sing
like blackbirds and thrushes
If the young men could sing
like blackbirds and thrushes
How many young girls would go
beating the bushes? ♪